


in the dreaming dark

by Elsin



Category: Original Work
Genre: (person thought they already knew; it turns out completely fine), Accidental Outing, Enemies to Allies to Friends, Fake Character Death, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Past Transphobia, Major Character Injury, Superheroes, Superpowers, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:00:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27857209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsin/pseuds/Elsin
Summary: Someone out there wants Kitten dead.  Eclipse may be a literal card-carrying supervillain (he's a member of the guild and everything) but even he isn't going to stand for that, especially not when Kitten is only akid.
Relationships: Child Superhero & Their Concerned Supervillain Nemesis
Comments: 6
Kudos: 25
Collections: Heart Attack Exchange 2020





	1. distrust

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GaleWrites](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GaleWrites/gifts).



First of all, to be perfectly clear: none of this was Rowan's fault. It wasn’t his fault that his old nemesis, Crescent Moon, had died, and it  _ definitely  _ wasn’t his fault that the man’s successor had just fallen out of the sky in front of him as he was walking home from a dinner at a nice restaurant. Of course, it  _ would  _ be his fault if he just let her lie there; a card-carrying member of the Supervillains' Guild he may have been, but he wasn’t a monster.

So he hurried to her side. It was actually quite unusual that she’d fallen here; for all the flying he’d seen her do, she’d never crashed down like this before. And she always got back up, at least during fights.

Not so now. Now she was curled awkwardly on the pavement in a dimly lit alleyway, bright red bloodstains blossoming across her white leotard. Carefully, Rowan crouched down next to her and rolled her onto her back. She whimpered at the motion, but didn’t try to stop him; that was worrisome enough by itself, without even accounting for the three deep gashes on her side.

“Hey, Kitten,” he said softly. She didn’t protest the nickname, which was another worrying thing. “Don’t you have a healing factor that’s better than this?”

“Mm,” she said. “’Snot working right.”

“You crashed,” he said. “Was that your flight failing, too?”

“Don’t think so,” she mumbled. “Just tired. Dizzy. Cold. Why is it cold?”

“It’s not,” Rowan said. It was a warm June evening. “I’m going to put pressure on your side, okay? This may hurt.” He didn’t have any bandages in his bag with him, but he did have an old dark sweatshirt; he pulled it out and pressed it to her side with one hand while checking her pulse at her neck. It was too fast, even considering she was a child; her skin was cooler than it should have been.

“That hurts,” she said.

“I know.” With his free hand he fished in his pocket, and pulled out his phone to dial 9-1-1; this was far beyond his expertise. To his surprise, he found his wrist held in an iron grip before he could get there. When he looked up, he found that Kitten looked afraid, eyes wide behind her mask.

“No hospitals,” she said. “You—you can’t—”

“I have to,” he told her. “I can’t treat something like this, and your own healing factor hasn’t kicked in yet; we don’t know if it’ll kick in at all. Kitten, you’re bleeding out. If I call them, I can at least keep you from being identified, all right?”

She blinked rapidly. “Okay,” she said finally, voice very small. She released his wrist, and he quickly called for an ambulance, giving them his location immediately.

“My niece ran off earlier,” he said. “I tracked her down, but she has deep wounds on her torso—she’s lost a lot of blood. She might have fallen from some height, but I’m not sure. I’m putting pressure on the wounds.”

They told him to stay on the line, that an ambulance was on its way; he agreed easily enough, and promptly settled the phone between his shoulder and ear while he set about removing the most damning parts of Kitten’s costume.

First he pulled off her gloves; those were easy enough, and so was his removal of the various gadgets strapped to the outsides of her boots. All of those went in his bag; after that he had to get her belt off—by far the trickiest part, but he’d seen her pull some rather unusual things out of it. Things it wouldn’t be normal for a cosplaying twelve-year-old to have on her person.

After that, there was only the mask; there he hesitated, but only for a moment. They’d take off her mask at the hospital, after all, and it would probably be better if only he knew that her mask was a professional-grade thing perfectly fitted to her head and not part of a child’s costume.

She looked younger without the mask—she always looked young, of course, but not to this degree. He didn’t recognize her; then again, he’d not really expected to recognize her.

Then the ambulance was arriving, and he stepped away to zip up his bag and let the paramedics do their job.

“Can you contact her parents?” one of them asked; Rowan grimaced a little.

“Not immediately, no,” he said. “They’re—up in the mountains. Out of cell service, and they’re not expecting to be back for a week or so.”

“And who are you to her?”

“I’m Michael Evans,” he said, the lie rolling easily off his tongue. He really did have documents proclaiming him to be  _ Michael Evans, age 26, _ too—one of the benefits of being a Guild member. “She’s Sophia Evans—my sister’s daughter. I’m taking care of her for the week. She really looks up to White Cat, but she wasn’t supposed to run off like this—”

After a bit more back and forth, they agreed to let him go to the hospital with them; even Rowan wasn’t sure why he was so invested here, except—

Someone had murdered Crescent Moon. Someone who  _ wasn’t _ him, but had put in a great deal of effort to make it look like it was his doing. And now White Cat’s healing powers—and probably her toughness, too, if he was any judge of things—had failed her in a time of great need. There could be a reasonable explanation, but…

Until Kitten woke up and could explain to him why her healing powers had failed her so thoroughly, Rowan had to assume that someone had just tried to murder his young, unofficial nemesis. And  _ that _ was completely unacceptable.

* * *

While she went into surgery and he was left to wait, he went to the bathroom to clean himself up as best as he could. There wasn’t much he could do about the blood that had soaked into his shirt and jeans, but at least he managed to get it off his skin. He also made a quick phone call to one of his non-Guild contacts, getting them to add one Sophia Evans, age twelve, into the electronic records of Michael Evans’ family. Anyone who went looking electronically would see that he really was her uncle, as far as any computers were concerned. She was maybe a little younger or older, but he was confident that twelve was a close enough guess to her actual age that no one would be too suspicious of it. And of course if they checked  _ paper _ records they would see that Sophia Evans didn’t actually exist, but that wasn’t particularly likely here.

At some point that night, a nurse came to talk to him.

“You said Sophia didn’t take any medications,” she said.

“Not daily ones, no,” Rowan said. “I don’t have her full medical history—none of us really thought it would be necessary, I must admit.”

“Well, next time you need to take your niece to an unfamiliar hospital without her medical records,  _ do _ try to at least tell them she’s a  _ trans _ girl so they’ll know what to expect,” the nurse said dryly. “And do think about  _ getting  _ those records as soon as you can.”

He blinked, then nodded. “Of course,” he said. “My apologies. It rather slipped my mind, in all the excitement—it’s been such a long time, you see.” Maybe that was part of why she hadn’t wanted to come to the hospital.

“It’s all gone remarkably well, by the way,” the nurse told him. “She’s a resilient kid. We should be able to transfer her into a post-surgical ward to wake up soon enough, though she’ll have to stay the night at least.”

Rowan wasn’t even tempted to smirk at the nurse’s comment about Kitten being resilient, too relieved that she seemed to be recovering at least a little from whatever had been done to her.

“Can I be there when she wakes up?” he asked instead. “It’ll probably be… good for her, I suppose. Calming.” Or maybe not, but he  _ needed _ to be there if he wanted her to corroborate his story—it wouldn’t be any skin off his back if she wanted to give his ruse away, normally, except he had the feeling that she wouldn’t want the hospital digging up her real identity and contacting her actual guardians. If that was to go smoothly, she’d have to agree with the story he’d already given them.

“Of course,” said the nurse. “We’ll come get you when it’s time for that.”

He was left alone to wait once more.

* * *

Katya woke in a hospital bed, raised so she was sitting most of the way up. She blinked; she didn’t remember coming here. She’d been… fighting Sphinx, right, that was it. Sphinx, who’d somehow torn open her side, and she’d fled, but she’d… she’d fallen.

She’d fallen in the alley, and there had been a man there, and he had called her  _ Kitten. _ He hadn’t worn his mask, but there was only one person who called her Kitten; so it must have been Eclipse, then.

Exactly why he’d save  _ her _ when he’d given Crescent Moon no such consideration, she wasn’t sure, but it seemed he had and it was rather difficult to put too much thought into it at the moment. Instead she looked around the room. Sitting in a chair next to her bed was… the same man, she was pretty sure, and not just because his clothes were covered in blood ( _ her _ blood, and wasn’t that odd?) but also because she had gotten at least a little bit of a glimpse of his face in the alley. Eclipse.

“Hey, Kitten,” he said quietly, and she scowled at him.  _ Definitely _ still Eclipse.

“I told you not to call me that,” she said. He didn’t argue or ignore the request like usual; instead he held up his hands.

“Right you are, Sophia,” he said, and Katya blinked. Sophi—oh. He’d promised to keep her identity a secret, hadn’t he, somewhere in there.

“At least you can keep a promise, I suppose,” she muttered. “Who’re you supposed to be then?”

“Your uncle,” he said. “Michael Evans—your surname too, by the way.”

“Why’re you doing this?”

He shrugged. “Like you said, I guess. I keep my promises. And I didn’t think you wanted your guardians to have to pick you up from the hospital—though you should probably stay the night, unless you absolutely must leave.”

Katya frowned. “I can heal fast, though,” she said.

Eclipse raised an eyebrow. “And you were healing so fast earlier? I’d recommend staying, were I you.”

“Fine,” she mumbled, because he did have a bit of a point and her head was still fuzzy from whatever they’d given her. It probably wouldn’t be too bad; it wouldn’t be the  _ first _ time she’d stayed out all night, and maybe they wouldn’t even notice if she got back early enough.

He nodded, and brought his chair closer to her bed so he could lean down to murmur in her ear. “Your parents are meant to be on a backpacking trip, out of cell service for a week,” he said. “You’re twelve years old, and a big White Cat fangirl—that’s why you were in a facsimile of a White Cat costume when they brought you in. I have your gloves, belt, boot add-ons, and mask—I’ll give them back when they discharge you. I’ll bring you some clothes too; the fabric of your costume is ruined, I’m sorry to say, though your boots should be fine.

“But you need to be careful, Sophia—unless you know what made your powers go on the fritz today?” He pulled back a little, and lifted an eyebrow; Katya wasn’t sure how to respond, except to say that she  _ wasn’t _ twelve, only eleven, but that wasn’t the main point.

“I—no,” she said. She wasn’t thinking quite well enough to process all that, but she was pretty sure she’d gotten all the main points. “No, I don’t.” And maybe (probably) she shouldn’t be admitting that to Eclipse, but lying seemed like so much effort in that moment.

He grimaced, and muttered, “That’s what I was afraid of,” under his breath, before blinking at her. “Oh, one other thing—you’ve been transitioning long enough that it slipped my mind when they asked for your medical information.”

Katya flinched, but only a little. She’d kind of figured he’d found out, what with him impersonating her guardian and all. “You better not start treating me any different,” she said instead.

Eclipse shook his head quickly. “Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said.

She looked at him suspiciously, but he didn’t  _ seem _ to be lying; that was something, at least, even if it was far less than she’d have liked. Then again, she didn’t trust him in general, so probably he’d have to show that anyway before she accepted it.

Then a nurse came in, and told her she needed to walk around for a few minutes if she could manage it. It turned out that her fuzzy-headedness wasn’t just her head, per se; her side was sore and she was a little dizzy, but with the nurse’s arm to hold she did fine. She was already exhausted by the time they’d finished a short circuit of the place, and was unusually grateful to be directed to a wheelchair so that she could be taken to a different ward to spend the night.

“Good night, Sophia,” said Eclipse, sounding unnervingly gentle. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night,” she mumbled back. “See you then, I guess.”

* * *

When she woke up in the morning, her head was much clearer; her side ached more, but since she was pretty sure she’d been on some heavy painkillers the night before that made sense. Reviewing it all in her head, she almost groaned aloud.

She’d been an idiot last night, and she’d definitely told Eclipse more than she should have. Not as much as she  _ could _ have, at least, but it was still… vexing. At least him having brought her here and taken such care to hide her identity was a good sign. He probably wasn’t trying to murder  _ her, _ then. Apparently only Crescent Moon could elicit that from him.

Katya shook her head. There wasn’t much point in mulling it over now. Whatever she’d said last night, whatever she might have given away—she couldn’t exactly undo it, so she’d just have to live with it.

After that they brought her an early breakfast, and checked over her wounds; they were pleasantly surprised at how well she was healing, but Katya herself only frowned. She should not have gotten those gashes in the first place, and they should’ve healed in minutes even then. Much as she hated to admit it, Eclipse was right. There was something strange afoot.

“Your uncle's here to see you,” they told her. “If nothing changes, you can go home this morning.”

“Great,” she said.

Not long after that, Eclipse showed up at her door with a backpack slung over one shoulder. Katya took the opportunity to look him over more carefully; she hadn’t had much of a chance to do so the night before.

He was of a middling height, with the same stocky build she’d always known he had. His hair, cut short, was red. With his face clean-shaven, she’d have taken him for a college student, not a supervillain.

“You look more awake today,” he said. “I got you some clothes—only your boots and gear really survived, I’m afraid—all of it should fit well enough for you to leave here in it, at the very least. I’ll just… leave it here.” With that he set a small pile of clothes down on the bed next to her and retreated from the room.

When she reached over to examine the clothes, Katya nearly groaned aloud. Almost everything Eclipse had gotten her was cat-themed; there were knee-high cat socks (which would at least be good for keeping her legs from chafing on her boots, not that she’d be telling  _ him _ that), a loose drapey cat tank top, and a zip-up cat sweatshirt. At least the sweatpants—with a drawstring waist—were a plain dark grey.

After she’d gone through all that, Katya discovered that on the bottom of the small pile were underwear in four different sizes. The only thing that kept her from burying her face in her hands was the way her side ached sharply when she briefly attempted the motion, so instead she just sat there and felt her cheeks burn.

Eventually, though, she had to push her embarrassment aside and set about the painstaking task of getting dressed without aggravating her injuries. She did, after all, want to get out of the hospital as soon as possible, before her body started doing things that went from merely unusual to alien, and if Eclipse was her ticket out of there… well. So be it, then.

* * *

An hour or so later found her standing next to Eclipse at the discharge desk, listening as best as she could to the instructions they gave him—she was the one who’d have to follow them after all. They handed over a small paper bag of medications and told them to return for a follow-up next week—they were bound to be disappointed there.

She was still tired, though, and as the conversation droned endlessly on she burrowed into the sweatshirt Eclipse had gotten her. It was surprisingly nice, fluffy and soft and warm, and she could admit to herself at least that it was kinda cute. Kinda.

Maybe she’d keep wearing it, after this was all over.

* * *

Finally the conversation ended and Eclipse led her out to the parking lot where his car, a beat-up-looking truck, waited. When she balked at getting in, he raised an eyebrow at her.

“If I wanted to hurt you,” he said, “wouldn’t I have already done it? There’s been ample opportunity after all. And how else are you planning to get home? Surely you don’t mean to fly there in broad daylight in civvies, with you still injured and your powers on the fritz?”

Katya hesitated a moment longer before scowling. “Fine,” she said, and gingerly climbed into the car.

They drove off in silence for a while. After some time, Eclipse pulled the care over on a quiet side street next to a lush green park.

“Maybe you’ve figured out something I don’t know,” he said slowly. “But were I a betting man I’d wager that it was no coincidence that your healing and toughness both glitched out in the same fight, with such disastrous consequences too.”

“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” she muttered. “No, I don’t know. Not that I’d give you specifics if I did, but—I don’t.”

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Damn,” he said. “That’s what I was afraid of. In that case, Kitten, I’m pretty sure someone powerful just tried to murder you.”

A chill ran down her spine at his words—it fit far too well for comfort—but aloud she scoffed at him. “I don’t know why you should care, anyways,” she said. “Seeing as it was  _ you _ that murdered Crescent Moon in the first place.”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I didn’t. Kill Crescent Moon, that is. I wasn’t even in the country all that week.”

“But I  _ saw _ you do it!” Katya snapped. “I  _ saw _ you kill him. I may be eleven, but I’m not stupid and I know what I saw that day.”

Eclipse had gone very still. “You saw it,” he said.

“That’s what I said.” She couldn’t cross her arms, so she settled for glaring at him instead.

“I take it my doppelgänger didn’t see  _ you, _ then.”

“If you’d seen me I probably wouldn’t have lived myself,” she said. A doppelgänger? She supposed it was possible. In times like this, she wished very much that Eclipse’s mask could be something other than a featureless black void-disc.

“Well then,” said Eclipse, breaking her out of her reverie, “if not for witnessing a crime, have you any idea why someone might want to kill you?”

Katya drummed her fingers on the door handle and considered the question for a while. “I mean,” she said slowly, “I did start some… investigations… into the whole affair. Looking at your record it didn’t seem like you could’ve pulled off what I saw without help—I was trying to find them.”

“That’d do it,” said Eclipse slowly. “Now, let’s assume it wasn’t me but an impostor who killed Crescent Moon—can you tell me what you saw? If it really was me, it’s not like you’d be telling me anything I didn’t already know.”

Katya hesitated, mulling it over for several minutes—but he knew so much already. He knew her face and her age and what she’d set out to do even, and he hadn’t hurt her yet. And it wasn’t as if he could use her to infiltrate a Guild she wasn’t old enough to properly join in the first place. “All right, then,” she said finally. “My mom sent me out to the corner store for cough drops one day…”

* * *

Rowan listened intently as Kitten spun her story. It was a long, unfortunate string of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, it seemed. He wished she’d not had to witness all this at such a young age, but since she had… well. He was not at all above exploiting that knowledge.

Crescent Moon, it turned out, had died in a poorly-lit alley, his speed mysteriously failing him even as he kept Rowan’s imitator from noticing the little girl hiding in the shadows.

“I suppose it’s my fault, a bit,” said Kitten glumly. “If I hadn’t been there… I don’t know. Maybe it would’ve gone down differently.”

“Maybe it would have,” said Rowan, who wasn’t going to  _ lie _ to Kitten about such a heavy thing. “And maybe it wouldn’t. You can’t know—his speed failed him, you said, so certainly there was something beyond your control affecting him that way. Even if it would have gone differently, though… it’s not your fault. He made his own choices, and the impostor made  _ their  _ choices. There are far more responsible parties than you, who happened to be there at the wrong time.”

Kitten gave him a suspicious glare. She’d been doing that a lot today, but he supposed he couldn’t really blame her. He  _ was _ a supervillain, after all, and her nemesis to boot.

“Look,” he said, “you don’t have to listen to me if you don’t want to. I’m not your real uncle, after all. But that’s the way I think of things, and from all the years I knew Crescent Moon I’m fairly sure that he’d make that choice over again in a heartbeat if it meant saving someone else.”

“Whatever,” she said after a long pause. “Can I go home now?”

“Sure,” he said. “Which neighborhood d’you want me to drive to? Before you go objecting to me knowing anything about where you live—you’re still hurt, and I still don’t think you’d do well flying across the city in broad daylight, much less walking there. I’m not asking you to tell me where you actually live either, just… something nearby. Okay?”

“Fine,” she said. Her arms twitched like she was going to cross them, but she didn’t, instead turning to look out the window as she rattled off an address of a small café.

He drove them there in silence. Once they arrived, he reached into the back of the car and grabbed a reusable shopping bag holding her gear from the night before.

“This is yours,” he said, then took the small paper bag containing her medications and the instructions to go with them. “And so is this. You’re not supposed to have these yourself, you’re supposed to have an adult administer them to you, but since you’re running around as a superhero, I figure you can follow simple instructions. Do me a favor and don’t take too much of anything, and don’t get yourself hooked on the opiates in there—try transitioning to the other pain relievers when you can.” He reached into his pocket, grabbed a stub of a pencil and a scrap of paper, and scribbled out the phone number for his burner phone—not the one he used as Rowan Rhodes, unremarkable civilian, nor his official Guild-issued fancy supervillain phone, but one removed from either of those. Having one had always seemed like a good idea, though he hadn’t had too much use for it. Then he put the paper in the meds bag, and the meds bag in the gear bag. “If those wounds still haven’t healed on the surface in six days,  _ please _ call me. I won’t ask any questions, and I can take you back for the follow-up appointment you’re supposed to do. If you want to tell someone else so they can take you, the appointment information should be written down along with the medication instructions.”

“Right,” she mumbled. He wasn’t at all sure if she’d actually do it, but it had been worth a shot at least. “Uh, thanks, I guess.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, and then she opened the car door and clambered out, and was off down the sidewalk in silence.

Rowan sat there for a few minutes, pondering his options, before getting out himself. If nothing else, he could find out if the Sundial Café was any good, and he  _ desperately _ needed his morning caffeine.

* * *

Katya walked most of the way home—it was only a few blocks from the café, and Eclipse, much as she might not like him, had at least been right about how conspicuous a girl flying around in broad daylight would be. When she got there, she slipped into the side yard and carefully flew up to her window—she never left it locked unless they were going on a long family trip—and slipped inside. It was still morning, at least, and her parents had learned that it was beyond pointless to try waking her before noon on weekend days, so  _ hopefully _ they wouldn’t have noticed her absence.

She  _ could _ go through her gear now, but beyond checking that it appeared to all be there she found she was too tired to do much else. Instead she shoved the bag to the back of her closet and fell into bed.

In only a few minutes, she was fast asleep.

* * *

She woke two hours later with her mom sitting on the edge of her bed, gently running a hand over her hair. Her side ached, and she wasn’t any less tired than she had been before falling asleep.

“Hey, Katya,” her mom said. “How are you feeling?”

“Tired,” said Katya before she could stop herself. She needed some of the painkillers they’d given her, she was pretty sure, but those were buried in her closet right next to her gear and she couldn’t tell her mom about either thing, nor the thick bandages taped to her side.

“You feel warm,” said her mom. “Are you up to coming down for breakfast, do you think?”

“In a little bit,” she said. Really she just wanted to lie there and sleep, but the doctors had  _ definitely _ told her that she needed to walk around. Something something post-surgical complications something. While her healing would normally have exempted her from something like that, there was absolutely nothing normal about this situation in any respect, and she figured it’d be better to follow their advice and it turn out to have been unnecessary than for things to go the other way around.

“All right, then,” said her mom. “Let me know if you change your mind—I can make you something, though. Does French toast sound good?”

“I’d like that,” she said, and brought her arm—on the uninjured side—out from under the blankets to rub her face. The movement led to the covers sliding off her shoulders, and her mom raised an eyebrow.

“Is that a new sweatshirt?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve seen it before.”

Katya’s brain stalled for a moment before she remembered that this was the same sweatshirt Eclipse had given her at the hospital. With the white cat on it, because he apparently liked to think he was funny. “Yeah,” she said. “It was a… gift. From a… from a friend.”

Her mom’s whole face lit up at that. “A friend? Oh, that’s lovely. I’m glad you’re making friends again, you know. You’ll have to tell me all about them later.”

“I… uh… yeah, I guess I—”

Her mom laughed and gently patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You don’t have to go into detail if you don’t want to, though I’d love to know of course. Right now I’d better get started on that food, though.”

“Thanks, Mom,” said Katya. After her mom left the room, closing the door gently behind her, Katya rolled onto her back and closed her eyes.

She  _ hated _ lying to her parents, but needs must sometimes and she’d been doing it for half a year now. And what did it say about her, that the only person she knew who she could even come close to calling a friend was her  _ supervillain nemesis, _ a criminal who’d sooner fight her than keep her company?

Her family was new to this city—they’d only moved in nine months before—and  _ that _ was because of her, too. Because there wasn’t a place in their old town for her to live her life as the girl she was, and not even one of her old friends wanted anything to do with her now. As for her new school… well. Everyone  _ seemed  _ perfectly nice so far, but it turned out that having a whole town turn on you could instill some  _ trust issues _ later on.

And Eclipse wasn’t even her friend! But she could hardly explain to her mom who’d really given her the sweatshirt, and… well. He’d accepted her without question, without hesitation, like it was nothing at all for him to do so. Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

She shook her head. It was  _ pointless _ to dwell on this; she had to get out of bed, and go down to eat a second breakfast. Perhaps unsurprisingly, she was really rather hungry.

So she carefully pushed herself up, doing her best to not aggravate her injuries, and shuffled over to the closet to get out her medication bag. It had been long enough since she’d left the hospital, apparently, that she was allowed another dose of painkillers.

Katya grabbed one of the pills and went downstairs. She’d probably have to take at least a little bit of a break from being White Cat, but… that might not, after all, be so bad. It might even help her out a little, let her clear her head.

A girl could hope, at least.


	2. discovery

When he got back to his base, Rowan didn’t waste any time before he hurried inside, spurred on by a desperate desire to know what his various experiments would have turned up by this time.

Whatever it was that was interfering with Kitten’s healing, it couldn’t be something  _ on _ her, some sort of external device. That hadn’t been likely in the first place; the fact that her healing hadn’t resumed after she’d gone through surgery made the possibility vanishingly small.

That left him with one primary option—some sort of chemical, probably something they’d managed to get into her bloodstream. And, luckily for his analysis attempts, her blood was something he’d gotten rather a lot of. True, it wasn’t exactly a pure sample, but with the kind of equipment one could acquire, if one only had the right connections… well. He’d had a big enough sample to work with, at least.

Most of the tests he’d left running had come up empty, which wasn’t exactly a surprise; he  _ knew _ some of these tests had been run on Crescent Moon after he’d died, because he’d broken into the Superheroes’ Guild headquarters to check the death records, and all of them had come up empty.

There were only two tests that returned anything other than a mundane makeup of Kitten’s blood. One was an obscure new test that he’d gotten off one of his cousins—one who was a researcher looking into metahumans—and which hadn’t been used for Crescent Moon. The other was a part of the standard battery of tests they’d run on anyone’s blood, if they came in with metapower struggles. It was  _ definitely _ a test that had been run on Crescent Moon, and which had revealed nothing there. Here it had given strikingly useful results, and that… now,  _ that _ was very interesting indeed.

Kitten had somehow ingested a variant of a powerful metablocking drug; its use was heavily restricted, and typically reserved for hospitals having to do surgery on patients with unusually tough bodies or too-quick healing factors and the Superheroes’ Guild, who had access for purposes of restraining particularly difficult villains. Notably, it was  _ not _ issued to the Supervillains’ Guild under any circumstances except for their one in-house clinic, and in  _ that _ case it was monitored even more closely than it was normally. Because that was the other thing—there was tight monitoring on facilities that could make that drug, and even closer monitoring of actual produced quantities of it.

So. If someone had dosed Kitten with it before her fight the night before—and that was almost certainly the case—then it had been acquired illegitimately. And Rowan was nothing if not acquired with the criminal world; this should be as good a starting point as any to get him closer to some answers about this whole sordid affair.

That Crescent Moon’s bloodwork had come back clean, even when he was exhibiting similar symptoms, did not escape Rowan’s notice. There weren’t many drugs that could just shut off a person’s powers, and if there had been an external device doing so it would have been noticed and noted.

Maybe someone from the Supervillains’ Guild had gotten to the paperwork or blood itself, had tampered with it. That would be a breach of etiquette, to be sure, but so was  _ murdering someone else’s nemesis _ and here they were anyway. Supervillain etiquette didn’t mean as much as it used to these days, it seemed.

Rowan shook his head. He could only speculate at this point, and it was fairly pointless speculation at that; he didn’t know enough. Didn’t have enough information to work with, couldn’t just go haring off on some wild goose-chase if he wanted to do this with any kind of efficiency.

At least the drug should be cleared out of Kitten’s system within the next forty-eight hours; even at its highest doses it didn’t tend to linger in the body for more than seventy-two, and he didn’t know when exactly she’d been dosed.

What was still worrying him, on the other hand, was that she hadn’t experienced a  _ complete _ power failure. Instead she’d had only her defensive and regeneration powers blocked. That told him that this was a new version of the drug, one he’d not seen before, and that left him with even more variables in his equation than he’d started out with.

Damn it all.

* * *

On Monday morning, Katya still felt weak; her side still hurt. She begged off school that day, instead spending most of her time curled up on the sofa, compiling everything she knew in a notebook. It had held everything she’d  _ thought _ she knew, but she was fairly certain now that Eclipse wasn’t responsible for what had happened to Crescent Moon, which threw out a good chunk of her old theories and introduced some new ones as well.

She didn’t get any answers, of course, but it was more relaxing than she had expected it to be to just sit on the couch, not worrying that she should be out at school or out going hero-ing.

By the time she went to bed, she was feeling a little better; with any luck she’d be able to go to school the next day.

Katya woke in the night with her side on fire. She stumbled out of bed and into the bathroom, locking the door behind her; off went her pajama shirt, and off came the bandages on her side. Her wounds had been reduced to faint red scratches, quickly shrinking, but her side still burned. Only a few moments later, the burning stopped and the gashes were gone completely. Of the injuries, she had only faint white lines to indicate that anything had happened at all. That was more than was usually left by her healing, but given how much she had struggled through it this time it still seemed like a minor thing.

Carefully, she reached up with the same arm; her body moved normally. Katya could’ve cried with joy at that. Her healing was back! She wouldn’t have to put up with  _ bandages _ and  _ stitches _ and  _ medications _ anymore!

She picked up a bit of sharp-edged plastic, and scraped it across her arm; it left no mark, and didn’t hurt. That  _ would _ have hurt her when she was younger, before she’d had her powers manifest—so she was back to normal, it seemed.

By the time she’d cleaned up the bathroom and made it back to her room, she was still grinning. And she kept right on grinning, even as she fell back into bed and went to sleep.

* * *

“Hey there,” said Rowan in his most winning voice, leaning against the counter, “you wouldn’t happen to know where I should go to talk to Director Riddle, would you?”

“The director is a very busy woman,” said the receptionist. “What’s your business with her?”

“Guild inspection,” he said, smiling apologetically and bringing out a badge to show her. “We’ve gotten some strange reports lately—probably nothing, just kids playing pranks or something, but you know how they are with things like this.”

“Hmm,” said the receptionist, studying his badge with a critical eye. “All right, then. I’ll call the director for you—for something like  _ this _ I suppose she can make an exception in her schedule.” He was unceremoniously directed to one of the squishy chairs lining the wall, which he took easily.

The badge was real, and would pass any check the Nayhem Institute used on it. Surprise inspections weren’t the  _ most _ common thing, but again, they did happen, and no one could deny that. On top of all that, Rowan was wearing a complex glamour over his real features; he looked like the double of the man whose badge he’d stolen. He didn’t know much about  _ acting _ like the man, of course, but that was all right. He didn’t plan to meet with anyone who knew Lawrence Hayworth today.

“Mr. Hayworth?” the receptionist called. “The director is ready for you now.”

“Thank you,” he said, and strode down the hall in the direction they’d indicated. Confidence was key here; Lawrence Hayworth wouldn’t be nervous over something like this. It was his job, after all—so neither would Rowan be. He was Lawrence Hayworth, here to inspect the facility on account of some strange tales the Superheroes’ Guild had heard about its production of metablockers. Nothing personal, just had to inspect every relevant facility to make sure everything was on the up and up.

“Mr. Hayworth,” said the director when he arrived at her office.

“Director Riddle,” he said. “Thank you for seeing me.”

“Of course,” she replied. “Now, how can the Nayhem Institute be of service to you today?”

“I’m afraid there’s been some rumors about unauthorized metablocker use going around,” said Rowan. “Probably nothing, but you know how the Guild can get—one hint that we let even a drop slip away, and it’ll be all of our jobs on the line.”

“Of course,” she said. “You’ll be wanting to see the production and transaction records, then?”

“That would be wonderful,” he said.

“Then follow me, Mr. Hayworth,” said Director Riddle. “The records office is right this way.”

When they were so deep in the maze of blank white corridors that Rowan was hardly sure of how he would get out again, they came to a simple white door labeled “Records Office.” She let him in, then indicated the panel on the wall.

“Call for someone when you’re done looking over the records,” she said. “Newcomers tend to struggle here, or so I hear, and it would hardly do for you to get lost.”

“Of course,” he said. “Thank you very much, Director Riddle.”

She smiled thinly at him. “Oh, it’s no trouble, Mr. Hayworth.” Then she left, and he was alone.

“Right then,” he said aloud to no one in particular. “Let’s get to this.”

* * *

When it came down to it, the Nayhem Institute had a very simple organization scheme, certainly simpler than the three metahuman hospitals he’d already gone to to examine their records. None of those had any irregularities in their records; they requisitioned the metablocker, stored it, used it in appropriate circumstances. He hadn’t truly expected to find something there anyway—he was far more suspicious of Nayhem, if for no other reason than as the primary producers of the drug they would be in a much better position to fudge the numbers.

The records were simple enough to look through, kept both on paper and electronically; he decided to search the electronic database first. Director Riddle hadn’t done him the courtesy of giving him a password, but then again it wasn’t necessary; Lawrence Hayworth’s badge had the correct clearance to let him into the system. Useful, that.

Over the past month, it turned out, there was nothing at all odd in the electronic records. Raw materials came in, were turned into the finished product, and shipped off. It was all regular, but something seemed… off, somehow. Rowan wasn’t sure what, exactly. Maybe it was just that of all the possibilities for where this had come from, Nayhem was by far the most likely. Maybe it was something in the atmosphere. Either way, he sighed and settled in to read the paper records. Perhaps something in them would be more enlightening.

The first thing he noticed was that they were ever-so-slightly different. Not much—not anything you would notice, if you weren’t scouring through and comparing them side-by-side—but subtly so. The amount of the drug produced was the same, and it went to all the same places; but the materials coming in were slightly higher in their numbers. Every shipment, consistently, was higher.  _ Why _ they would keep all this, Rowan really didn’t know—honestly! If he’d been skimming materials to make highly controlled drugs to sell on the side, he’d  _ certainly  _ have been more careful. But there it was. There were, of course, no records of the transactions sending away the extra doses, nor of the production process, but to leave  _ that _ much of a paper trail would have been exceptionally sloppy even by the apparently low standards of the Nayhem Institute.

There was nothing else of note in the records, and Rowan carefully replaced everything where he had found it before pressing the buzzer on the wall. Sure, he probably  _ could _ get out on his own, but that would be needlessly rude; they had been very clear that he was to get himself an escort. Since he wasn’t planning on snooping around just then, he decided it would be best to just play by their rules and not stir up any trouble for himself or for them.

Still, that didn’t stop him from swiping the keycard of the security guard who came to collect him. A security guard’s keycard would probably work well enough if he had to come back to snoop around more.

Perhaps, had he been a superhero doing this investigation instead of a villain, he’d have felt bad; as it was, he didn’t let it trouble him. The security guard would notice his card was gone at some point, but he’d probably assume that he’d dropped it somewhere, not that the mild-mannered inspector had stolen it from him.

It seemed that in order to find anything out he would have to do some more digging. How lovely—digging. His favorite part of this whole gig, always.

* * *

He didn’t break in that night. That would have been obvious; he didn’t doubt that they would be on higher alert for suspicious things after their surprise inspection. He  _ did _ return to Lawrence Hayworth’s apartment and replace the man’s badge in its locked case before retreating down the hall in an unremarkable delivery man’s guise. Soon enough Hayworth would wake up, hopefully none the wiser as to the reason for his sudden tendency to oversleeping.

Rowan instead stalked the outside of the Nayhem Institute building in half-gear that night; he kept his usual mask since it was really very good at hiding his features, and he kept most of his gear, but instead of his typical flamboyant jesterlike costume he wore all black. If their records were to be believed and their patterns were consistent, they would be shipping out three trucks of metablockers tonight; perhaps, he would be able to learn something about the unacknowledged extra metablockers without having to break in.

From the rooftop across the alley, he used a long-range tracker rifle to tag all three trucks, and settled in to watch them. One went to each of the three hospitals, as he had expected; he followed them downtown in his car, since that would give him a better ability to track wherever they might go next.

Then two of the trucks turned straight around to head back to Nayhem, but not so the third. That one, instead, headed for the waterfront, where there were so many long docks and construction sites and warehouses that it was all but impossible to keep track of them all. Rowan drove off after that one. If any of the three were up to something suspicious, it was almost certainly that one.

* * *

In the end, it turned out that Katya didn’t have to go looking for the answer to her months-long search for who had killed Crescent Moon. Instead, she managed to stumble into the answer quite by accident.

She was running down a different tip on Saturday night, a week after her injury—one of the children she’d saved way back when she’d first gotten started had told her that there were funny things happening down in the semi-abandoned warehouses in the north end of the industrial waterfront. People who didn’t belong meeting there, big fancy trucks, all that.

So she was crouching on the roof of a warehouse when she saw them arrive: a delivery truck driven by two men in delivery-type uniforms, and a sleek black car—maybe a limousine, but cars weren’t really her strong point—and a woman in a sharp pantsuit with hair slicked back into a ponytail and sunglasses.  _ Sunglasses, _ of all things, even though it was night and the warehouses were not particularly well-lit. Well, whatever. Maybe it had something to do with the woman’s powers, maybe she needed them to help with that. It made as much sense as anything else she could come up with.

They were talking; though Katya could hear that they  _ were _ talking she couldn’t make out the words from this far away. She wasn’t Superman, after all; she couldn’t just pull new abilities out of thin air whenever it became convenient for them to manifest, and superhuman hearing wasn’t on the list of things she had in her arsenal.

There was nothing for it. She would just have to get closer. Conveniently for her, the people below seemed to be agreeing that they would be taking their discussion out of the open and into one of the warehouses—it would be easier to find cover there, she figured. So she flew over the gap—none of them were looking up, and even if they  _ had _ been looking up she would have been a faint blur against the dark sky. She didn’t have a full costume back together yet, so she’d been making do with basic dark clothes. They made for a better disguise at night, at least, for when she wanted to be stealthy.

Katya carefully made her way through the doorway and floated down the stairs, hiding behind a large shipping crate before the three entered the warehouse. If she angled herself right, she could see them, but it was very unlikely they’d be able to see her.

Before she could fully settle in, though, there was a footstep next to her, and she whirled sharply only to see Eclipse standing there. She did not relax. The real Eclipse wasn’t out to hurt her, she was pretty certain, but… this might not  _ be _ the real Eclipse, who was an illusionist anyway. His face was uncovered, which made it  _ more  _ likely he wasn’t some kind of impostor at least.

He tapped his nose, then drew out three lines to each side, then held a hand about two feet off the floor, then winked at her. She scowled; he hadn’t  _ said _ anything, but it didn’t take a genius to work out that he was calling her  _ Kitten. _ Again.

“White Cat,” she signed back, and his eyebrows rose.

“Kitten,” he repeated, properly this time, and she gave a silent sigh.

“What kind of hat did you get me?”

“I didn’t,” he replied, and she let herself relax most of the way. There wasn’t much else she could do to verify his identity; and anyway, the other three people were coming in. She turned back to watch, and listen, and hopefully hear at least a little bit better this time.

“You assured me last time,” said the woman coldly, “that there would be no chance of White Cat noticing anything amiss until it was too late. You  _ also _ assured me that she would be injured as any mundane person. Can you explain how it is that she is still around?”

“Not our problem,” said one of the drivers. “We’re just delivering you your goods. It’s up to you to use them effectively. Speaking of—the Director isn’t too happy either. Apparently some  _ rumors _ got out about metablockers and an honest-to-God Guild inspector came by to check out the production and transaction records.”

“Did anything come of that?” The woman sounded bored, but Katya was pretty sure she could hear the underlying worry there.

“No,” the other driver snorted. “As if anything  _ could. _ He didn’t raise a fuss, though. But you can’t just keep getting metablockers ad infinitum—there’s only so much people can look the other way, you know.”

“Very well, then,” said the woman. “Tell your Director I appreciate her… willingness to be circumspect here.”

“We’ll do that. That’ll be the same cost as last time—you sure you can pay that up front?”

“Of course I can,” the woman snapped, unamused. “It’s a small price to pay, in comparison to the riches White Cat’s death will bring us.”

Katya gasped then, and involuntarily took a step back. She’d known—she’d  _ guessed _ at least—that someone was trying to kill her, but to hear it said so openly…

“What was that?” one of the men asked, looking wildly around.

“There’s someone here,” the other said, and the woman sighed harshly.

“Andwin! Get in here and search this place,” she snapped. “I want our eavesdropper found and brought out here.”

Katya stood rooted. Her heart was hammering in her ears, and she could hardly breathe.

And then there was Eclipse in front of her, grasping her shoulders briefly in both hands—a strange feeling ran over her body—before pulling back to sign to her.

“Stay still. Stay silent. Trust me.” Then he smiled softly at her, and reached up to the side of his mask to flick the shadowscreen on over his face.

“Now, now, now, there’s really no need for that,” he said, moving around the crate. “I was simply surprised to hear someone discussing their plans so… openly.”

“Eclipse,” said the woman shortly. “Care to explain why, exactly, you were skulking around this particular warehouse?”

Katya could not see him from where she stood. She couldn’t see any of them. But she  _ could _ still hear, and she kept listening.

“Well, I like to keep tabs on what’s going on with my nemeses,” he said lazily. “And after my  _ first _ one went and got himself killed by an impostor… well, that was very rude, you know? I didn’t want  _ that _ to happen again. If I’m going to take the credit for a murdered nemesis it should at least be  _ me _ who did the murdering, don’t you think?” He paused. “Although I don’t know why you’re so very set on killing off a little slip of a fifteen-year-old.”

She blinked, not daring to let herself move a muscle more than that. Fifteen? She wasn’t even  _ close _ to fifteen, and he  _ knew _ that, so why—

“But you  _ would _ be all right with killing your little unofficial nemesis,” said the woman.

“If I’ve got a good enough reason? Sure, why not. The kid’s been a thorn in my side for a while now.”

That was a lie. Katya  _ knew _ it was a lie. But Eclipse’s voice was cold and flat and she still shuddered to hear it.

“You don’t seem so very set on causing death and destruction,” said the woman.

“Not usually, no,” he replied. “But everyone already thinks I’ve made one exception—why shouldn’t I make another? And everything  _ would _ go off rather more smoothly without any interfering factors.”

They kept talking. Katya kept listening. They were difficult words, to be sure, but she needed to hear them. Needed to know. Needed to  _ understand _ what was happening, why they wanted her dead so much.

Why they’d wanted  _ Crescent Moon _ dead so much.

Ultimately, though, they didn’t say that much aloud. Unfortunate, but understandable.

“So,” the woman was saying, “you’re telling me that if I should entrust  _ you _ with one of the most heavily regulated drugs in the world, you’ll be able to take out White Cat without implicating anyone other than yourself?”

“Of course,” he said. “What do you take me for? Some kind of incompetent? Remember, I’ve been at this job longer than most, and no one’s gotten  _ me _ arrested or taken in yet. I know how to cover my damn tracks.”

“Then I suppose you’ll get it,” the woman snapped. “If your little nemesis is still running around in a week’s time, the Guild will be  _ most _ displeased with you.”

“Don’t worry,” said Eclipse. “She won’t be.” He paused, making a noise like he was stretching. “Well, would you look at the time,” he said. “If you’ve not got anything else you need me for, I’m afraid I’ll have to take my leave of you—I’ll need enough coffee to wake up tomorrow morning as it is.”

“Go on then,” said the woman, sounding more exasperated than anything. “Meet me back here for your metablockers tomorrow night. Go get your beauty sleep.”

“Thanks,” he replied, sounding almost cheerful, like he wasn’t planning her _murder_ a minute earlier. “I’ll make sure to do that.”

Katya heard him leave, and still she stayed standing in place, breathing as shallowly and quietly as she could.

“Andwin!” snapped the woman again. “Check this place over. I don’t trust Eclipse to have been the only one here—we’ll have to report this to headquarters either way, but I’d rather  _ not _ miss a spy in our midst when we do so.”

“Yes, ma’am,” said a third man, and Katya heard four pairs of footsteps spreading out through the warehouse. She stood there and remembered Eclipse’s words to her.  _ Trust me. _ At that moment, trusting him was her only option.

One of the people—a man she’d not seen before, so presumably Andwin—rounded the corner of the passage between crates and looked straight at Katya before turning to look the other way. He mumbled something under his breath about paranoid bosses before heading in the opposite direction, and she let out the breath she’d been holding, still long and slow and quiet. That would be just what she needed—get passed over visually, get caught because you  _ breathed. _

She had not known that Eclipse’s illusions could linger so long after he stopped actively maintaining them. The thought was a little unsettling; how many times had she fought him, only to have him mislead her about some aspect of their battle? She couldn’t know, not now at least. She could only be grateful as the four conspirators finished their sweep of the warehouse and left.

For an achingly long time—a slow, steady count to one thousand—she stayed there before finally allowing herself to relax, sitting abruptly down on the warehouse floor.

That had been close. That had been far too close, and she didn’t know what to do about it. Obviously she’d have to talk to Eclipse, but how? He’d given her a phone number, but she was reluctant to call it; she didn’t have a cell phone, and she certainly wouldn’t be calling him from her  _ home _ phone. As for pay phones… she didn’t know if those existed anymore even, and if they did exist she certainly didn’t know where to find one.

Carefully, she thought back over the conversation. He’d been odd at the end there—something about coffee. Coffee, in the morning, which the others certainly didn’t need to know about.

The others didn’t, but  _ she _ did, didn’t she. She had told him to leave her at a coffee shop, the week before, and he’d done it.

Tomorrow would be a new day. Tomorrow she could try and sort it all out, but there was nothing more she could do here tonight.

Katya rose on shaky legs and slowly lifted herself into the air. It was time for her to go home.


	3. deception

Rowan arrived at the Sundial Café twenty minutes after they opened. It was early still, early enough that he highly doubted if Kitten would be there yet, but he’d brought a laptop with him and he figured it was better to be too early than to be too late and miss her entirely.

He’d gone through two cups of coffee already when she walked through the door forty-five minutes later, hands shoved in the pockets of the hoodie he’d gotten her to go home from the hospital. Huh. She’d kept it, then. He’d rather expected her to burn everything he got her in case he’d somehow bugged it. (He hadn’t, of course, but he wouldn’t have blamed her for thinking otherwise.)

When she slid into the chair across from him, he smiled at her; she glared back. Right. She didn’t much like him in the first place, and last she heard he was plotting how best to kill her.

“You want anything?” he asked. “They make very good coffee here, though if you’re not already hooked on caffeine I don’t know if it’d be such a good idea to start at your age.”

“…sure,” she said. “I’ll get a hot chocolate, then, I guess.”

A few minutes later, when she had a steaming cup of hot chocolate in front of her and looked marginally less grumpy, Rowan shut his computer.

“I’m sure you’re wondering what I was thinking, back there in the warehouse,” he said.

“I mean—I don’t think you—you  _ meant _ it. So yeah, I am.”

“Here’s the thing,” he said slowly. “You’re in too deep, I think. They’ve taken too much notice of you; I haven’t the faintest idea of how to extricate White Cat from their attention without a death to go off of. So that’s the thing. For them to be happy,  _ White Cat _ has to die.”

“But you don’t mean to do that,” she said.

“Oh, I do. I told them I would kill White Cat, didn’t I? So that’s what we’ll need to do.”

She blinked, then narrowed her eyes. “I don’t—oh.  _ Oh. _ You mean to kill  _ White Cat, _ you said. You don’t mean to kill  _ me. _ ”

He grinned at her. “I always knew you were smart,” he said. “And yes, that’s the essence of it.”

Kitten frowned, tapping the table with one hand, taking a drink of her hot chocolate with the other. “Is that why you called me fifteen?”

He nodded. “It’s a  _ bit _ old for how you look, but for someone who’s not interacted with you much, not beyond the realm of possibility—and you act mostly from the shadows. You don’t exactly give out interviews. This way they won’t be looking for dead or vanished eleven-year-olds, I hope.”

“So how’s this gonna go?” she asked. “White Cat dies, I live, I’m supposed to… what, just shut up and disappear, let  _ you _ do everything moving forwards? I’d rather not, if it’s all the same to you.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I have a few ideas, but they all hinge on what the Guild says to me and how it all goes down—I can lay them out for you later. But first—since we’re going to be working so closely on this little ruse, we have to if we’re going to have any hope of pulling it off—I thought I’d start with a show of trust. You don’t need to reciprocate it if you aren’t comfortable.” He held out a hand to her across the table. “I’m Rowan Rhodes,” he said, “and it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Kitten looked just as suspicious as she always did, but she did gingerly reach back to take his hand. “…You can call me Katya,” she eventually said. “You’re not getting  _ my _ surname out of me, though.”

“Fair enough,” he said. “Now, here’s what I’ve been thinking…”

* * *

Four days later, Katya stood on a roof, looking out over her city. This was the last night she would be able to do so; tonight, she was going to die. Well.  _ Katya _ would be fine, but it would be the last time she was able to go out like this. Tonight White Cat would die, publicly and in view of at least three different cameras. Tonight the deception would begin in truth—she couldn’t back out of it after this point. That would be rather against the point, after all.

Only a few minutes on, she heard sirens, and turned to look across the rooftops—she knew where they would be, of course, but if anyone was watching she would have to put on a show.

That was all this was. One great big show. She drummed her fingers on her wrist—there was a device there, under her glove, to make it easier for Eclipse (she knew his name now, but this was easier when they were out in the field) to project illusions over her.

The sirens picked up in number, and Katya swallowed down her nerves before jumping into the air.

It was time to get this show going.

* * *

Eclipse was standing on a glittering platform in front of one of the city’s major banks, arms outstretched.

“You see me here, don’t you?” he called to the police officers that surrounded the place. “You must understand that there is no way for you to safely retrieve both the bank’s holdings  _ and _ my hostages.”

“Stand down, or we shoot!” one of the officers called—a captain, Katya thought he might be.

“And allow my glitter bombs to detonate? I think not,” said Eclipse. “Believe me, they’re not  _ nearly _ as harmless as you’d think from the name!”

“Hey!” called Katya, flying fast towards him. “You know, I bet the detonator you’ve got there would only go off if you got  _ shot _ up here. Would be real out of character for you to have it go off from a mere  _ tackle _ like this!” And that, of course, was when she collided with Eclipse and sent them both tumbling off the platform.

He pressed something against her neck as they tumbled through the air together; it was cold for a moment, and then there was a sharp prick against her neck, and then it was gone. He squeezed her arm twice in quick succession. That was her cue—she disentangled herself and let him tumble across the plaza, landing lightly herself. This was a modified formula he was meant to have dosed her with—she would, supposedly, be having her toughness and healing drained away right now, but nothing else.

“Come on, Eclipse,” she said. “Surely you wouldn’t get taken out by a little thing like  _ that _ tackle. You’re hardier than that.”

“We can’t all bounce back like you, Kitten,” he retorted, climbing to his feet. His costume, his ridiculous jester’s outfit, was slightly dusty but he was otherwise none the worse for wear.

She moved, so she was between him and the doors of the bank—she flew to do it, a movement so easy and casual it was honestly a miracle she hadn’t accidentally done it in civvies at any point in the past.

“If you want what’s in here,” she said sweetly, “you’ll have to go through me. Don’t tell me you’re  _ scared _ of that idea.”

“Hardly,” said Eclipse. Then he set off one of his glitter bombs next to her, and Katya had to be quick to escape getting her costume more than a little singed in the blast. She scowled back at him, ears ringing a little.

“Careful!” she said. “These costumes don’t grow on trees, you know! D’you have any idea how much trouble it is to keep replacing these when you’re only a teenager?” There. Let that support Eclipse’s claim that she was fifteen.

“Maybe that could keep you out of my hair for a little while,” he shot back at her. “You can’t go running around as a superhero in your  _ real _ pajamas after all—you would only do that in your  _ special _ pajamas.”

“You really do care, then,” she said. “Only a  _ true _ nemesis would call a costume pajamas.”

“Perhaps,” said Eclipse. “But would a true nemesis do  _ this? _ ” And with that, he raised a hand, and flicked two fingers in a signal gesture.

How she managed to not react with more than a small laugh—there was nothing that gesture alone could do to her—she would never know.

“Right,” she said, “like a little gesture’s going to do anyth—”

The bullet slammed into her ribs, right over her heart, and even though she  _ had _ her toughness and her healing, even though she knew it wouldn’t do her any real damage, she still gasped in shock and pain and stumbled back into the doors. She’d never actually  _ been _ shot before, not like this. And she could feel the light touch of Eclipse’s illusion over her, knew that what she was feeling was not at all what everyone around her was  _ seeing. _ Her costume was warm and damp at her back; the squib there had burst when she’d impacted the doors. Just as it was supposed to. It would be easier for everyone if there  _ was _ a real bloodstain, even if the blood wasn’t actually hers, wasn’t actually from this not-wound.

She looked up, and made eye contact with the illusion of a girl standing on the other roof, sniper rifle lying beside her. The illusion smirked, saluted, then—a moment after the helicopters turned their lights on her—whirled and left Katya’s field of vision. The rifle was still there, of course. Just because Eclipse could rig it to aim and fire from a distance didn’t mean his illusion-girl was any more solid than usual.

The band around her wrist tightened again, and she knew it would be releasing the metablocker into her system now, followed by a sedative—neither she nor Eclipse had access to sedatives that worked against healing as good as hers, and they’d agreed it would be better to have her not struggling to fake limp unconsciousness.

So her vision was genuinely blurring, and she was still struggling to breathe normally with her deeply bruised chest, when the people arrived to try to save her life.

“Hey,” she tried to say, but her lips didn’t want to obey, and she fell underwater as all around her the people made a great shouting commotion.

* * *

As soon as Kitten stumbled back into the door from the force of the bullet, Eclipse hopped back onto his floating platform, and hastened away. The police should mostly focus on Kitten, but he’d just had her  _ shot _ (and that had taken a greater act of will than he had expected it would; even knowing that it would do no more than bruise her, that it  _ couldn’t _ seriously injure her, his mind had been awash in things that could go wrong) and they wouldn’t exactly be feeling kindly towards him either.

He had three points of focus: himself, Kitten, and Kitten’s shadow doppelgänger. The doppelgänger was essential if he wanted to be able to bring Kitten in later—there  _ had _ to be an accomplice, visible at the same time and in the same place as Kitten.

As for himself, the moment he was out of sight he cloaked himself invisible and turned his focus onto Kitten. She had to look injured, had to  _ stay _ looking injured, had to convincingly pass for  _ dead. _ With the sedative they were using, it would slow her breathing and heart rate a dangerous degree; but he’d diluted the metablocker. It  _ should _ be too weak to let the sedative do her actual harm.

He watched her get loaded into an ambulance, followed that to the hospital, followed them to the hospital morgue—his floating platform was actually really quite fast and he could keep  _ himself _ invisible easily enough while moving—and all the while he kept up the dynamic illusion of her grievous wounds, and all the while he kept up the minor, subtle illusions he’d been using on her face and body the whole time. She looked ever so slightly older than usual, today, both in face and body—and, importantly, no one who saw her would think she was anything but a cis girl.  _ That _ was critical, for no one knew that White Cat was transgender, and if things stayed that way not only would it preserve her personal comfort, it would also mean no one would be looking too closely at an eleven-year-old trans girl when trying to figure out which civilian it was that should be dead.

When finally they had declared her dead, stopped trying to resuscitate her, left her in the morgue—Rowan nodded.

It was time for him to steal a body.

* * *

Katya woke in a soft, warm bed. She could breathe deeply without any pain; whatever inhibitions the metablocker had imposed on her healing, they were gone now.

She had been in this room only once before, but she recognized it right away; this was Rowan’s bedroom, and it was where she had fully expected to be waking up.

“Hey, Kit—Katya,” he said. “Sorry. I suppose I should get out of the habit of calling you that, shouldn’t I.”

Katya subconsciously touched her chest—just left of her sternum, over her heart, where they’d agreed to have her be shot—as she sat up. “Did it work?” she asked. “Do they trust you?”

He nodded. “We’re in,” he said simply.

She gave a long deep sigh. “Thank  _ God, _ ” she said fervently. “I wouldn’t—wouldn’t have wanted to do all this, just to have it—you know.  _ Not _ convince anyone.”

“I know what you mean,” said Rowan, smiling slightly at her. “I’m glad it worked out, too. Are you ready to join forces with your erstwhile nemesis to find out what  _ really _ happened to Crescent Moon, then?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Like you could stop me anyway—I don’t want to be part of your petty  _ thefts, _ though, if it can be helped. I got into this whole thing to  _ help _ people, not hurt them.”

“We’ll do our best,” said Rowan. “But in the meantime… welcome to the dark side, Katya. Or should I call you Starfall?”

“Katya’s fine for now,” she said, rolling her eyes a little. “But I suppose I’ll have to be Starfall, from now on, when I’m in a mask.”

“Your backpack’s right where you left it,” Rowan said, getting to his feet. “I can make you something for breakfast—you like pancakes?”

“I—yeah,” said Katya, and Rowan nodded and left her alone.

Soon enough she’d be going home from her alleged sleepover with her friend (who was, allegedly, Rowan’s  _ niece, _ not Rowan himself, of course) to her parents, who loved her and knew nothing of the second half of her life she’d made for herself. Soon enough she’d be just Katya again, a normal girl.

But she was also going to be Starfall. Starfall, who would be able to go all the places White Cat had been barred from, who would finally be able to get to the bottom of exactly what had happened to Crescent Moon, who could learn just how deep the corruption truly ran.

For now, though, she had a breakfast to eat and an ex-nemesis (trusted ally, if perhaps not yet friend) to talk things through with.

Katya shoved back the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. It was time to begin the day.


End file.
